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Product Details

About the Author

James McGee grew up in Gibraltar, Germany, and Northern Ireland. He has traveled extensively in Europe, the United States, Australia and the Far East, but nowadays resides in Somerset, England. Five books from his Hawkwood series are available from Pegasus Books: Hawkwood, Resurrectionist, Rapscallion, Rebellion and The Blooding.

Editorial Reviews

London Bow Street Runner Matthew Hawkwood lands an extremely dangerous undercover assignment in McGee’s excellent third Regency crime thriller (after 2012’s Resurrectionist). The Home Secretary has asked Bow Street to assist the Admiralty, whose Transport Board administers foreign prisoners of war. Recent board efforts to investigate an alarming increase in the number of escapes of French prisoners have resulted in the drowning of one British naval officer and the disappearance of another. Posing as an American who was captured in Spain while attached to one of Bonaparte’s regiments, Hawkwood enters the new prison in Maidstone, a holding pen for prisoners before their transfer to the Thames and Medway “hulks” (i.e., prison ships). The rip-roaring plot compares favorably to Robert Louis Stevenson, while the evocative details of life aboard ship call to mind Patrick O’Brian. Agent: Jennifer Weltz, Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. (May)

Publishers Weekly

This adventure yarn races along with twists and turns that grip from page to page. It’s a cracker; unrelentingly entertaining. And it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long while.

Coventry Telegraph

A darkly attractive hero, terrific period atmosphere andaction that moves so fast.

The TImes (London)

A richly enjoyable and impressively researched novel – also very gripping. James McGee is clearly a rising star in the historical galaxy and I look forward to Hawkwood’s return.

Andrew Taylor

Bonaparte at war with England provides a backdrop for McGee's (Hawkwood, 2012, etc.) third Matthew Hawkwood saga. A Bow Street Runner, "Hawkwood's world was one of ill-lit streets, thieves' kitchens, flash houses, rogues and rookeries." Think Regency-era FBI, or England's Texas Rangers. Hawkwood's been summoned by his wily, taciturn boss, James Read, to meet Capt. Ludd. England is housing French prisoners of war in "prison hulks" moored in rivers and harbors. Prison hulks are derelict vessels; conditions aboard are ugly, malodorous and unsanitary. Ludd says too many prisoners are disappearing, and he's lost two lieutenants who were attempting to discover the escape routes. Read sends Hawkwood to learn the fate of the missing investigators. With gut-wrenching descriptions of the rotten conditions aboard the hulks, McGee plunges readers into the action. Hawkwood is relegated to the Rapacious, where Rafalés and Romans--so called because they wear blankets like togas--rule the bottommost decks, led by a wicked albino Corsican named Matisse. Hawkwood, posing as an American officer fighting for the French, befriends a French officer, a privateer captain named Lasseur. Lasseur and Hawkwood challenge Matisse. Matisse dies. Lasseur and Hawkwood are threatened with the noose, but they're spirited off the hulk by a French underground group. Hawkwood and Read are likable, familiar characters developed over several volumes, but Lasseur is one-dimensional. Nevertheless, McGee's narrative profits from ample research, and the yarn rapidly gallops off to the wild coastal lands sheltering free traders--smugglers. A handsome widow shelters the pair before they take refuge in an abandoned abbey, the redoubt of the blackguard Morgan, a well-described smuggler king, who threatens the pair into helping hijack gold meant for the Iron Duke's troops. Hawkwood and Lasseur make more than one hairbreadth escape, rescued at the end by another well-developed regular character, Nathaniel Jago, Hawkwood's old sergeant who's now sometimes on the wrong side of the law. McGee's talent and research lend plausibility to the rollicking adventure. Not a page without peril, whether from pistol, blade or rogue.

Kirkus Reviews

A ripping yarn, fast-paced, violent and exciting.

Historical Novels Society

A darkly attractive hero, terrific period atmosphere and action that moves so fast.